


Other Side

by shutupeccles



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Humor, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-10
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:41:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shutupeccles/pseuds/shutupeccles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus is dead. He and Sirius have some matters to discuss (i.e. scores to settle) before Harry uses the Resurrection Stone. The afterlife isn't quite what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Other Side

So this was death?  
Remus didn't see what the fuss was about. Foolish Death Eaters.

Something moved through the fog. A huge grey dog padded toward him. It's fur darkened as it came nearer and then the beast walked erect. Remus anxiously looked behind him. No sign of his wife. Hopefully that meant Dora survived. Hell could be defined as spending eternity here with Sirius and Dora. Perhaps the Death Eaters weren't so foolish after all.

"Sirius," Remus said to his welcoming committee.

"Remus." Sirius replied without looking at him directly.

Why was he here when he clearly did not want to be? He appeared to be waiting, but for what? Or whom?

"What happens now?" Remus asked.

"Nothing. This is it."

He refused to look at Remus as their silence filled the formless fog.

"Why didn't you stay home?" Remus yelled without warning. He began to pace frantically through the mist swirling at his feet. It felt neither cold nor damp, but he didn't give a figgy pudding about his surroundings just now. "More importantly, why didn't you tell me you gave Harry that blasted mirror? I would have told him to use it to talk to you directly instead of faddlng about with Floo powder and - frigging Kreacher, your arsehole of a house-elf! Why didn't _you_ remind him? Dim-witted Doxy-dropping dumbfucks!"

"Language Remus." Sirius normally laughed if Remus swore because it didn't happen very often. He didn't sound remotely amused this time.

"Don't tell me to mind my language you hippogriff-fucking hypocrite."

"You're the only half-breed I've fucked, thank you Remus. Non-human, dark creature, whatever your official classification is. Arsehole should do."

Remus stopped pacing to glare at Sirius. "You're angry at **me**? Should I bother asking why or do you want me to guess?"

Sirius scowled.

"I wouldn't be married to Nymphadora if you were alive, Sirius. I'd be married to you."

The harsh, barking laugh echoed sharply. It would have been muffled by an earthly fog rather than amplified and honed to a point that pierced Remus through the heart.

"You would have said no?" Remus asked in disbelief. He'd been sure of success, had the accommodation booked in Switzerland, a plan to get Sirius out of Grimmauld Place, fake Muggle identification, applications filled out and everything.

"You would never have asked." Sirius replied with a snarl that implied he believed Remus had been too cowardly to commit, or that he hadn't loved Sirius enough to forgive him. Why couldn't they have this argument while they were alive so Remus could provide proof? If they were still alive there would be no need to fight. Remus felt as bleak and numb as his surroundings.

"I knew I'd be dead before you'd bother asking."

Sirius stared at Remus. He put both hands on his hips and stared some more. "That has to be the most juvenile thing you have ever said."

"And yet more mature than half the things you've said or done."

The silence stung them both.

"Piss off then, Padfoot," Remus said wearily.

"There's no point. I can walk a thousand steps in one direction and end up here. James and Lily will be along again shortly."

"Why?"

"Harry's going to need us, apparently. Fat lot of help you're going to be, Moody Moony."

"If I'd known you were going to be crankier than Cruikshanks I would have stayed home and hid under the bed until the war was over, rather than risk meeting you again."

"Once Harry's finished with us you can move on and spend eternity with your wife." Sorrow edged its way into Sirius' voice.

"I don't want to do that," Remus admitted quietly.

"You certainly aren't spending it with me."

"Why not? I think I've earned that, don't you?" Remus demanded angrily. "I planned on spending my life alone so my curse wouldn't hurt anyone else but you persistently insisted we'd be fine. We tried to be, and wanted to be, but we were **never** fine or you would never have suspected me the way you did. You never mentioned your doubts to me or let it interfere with our sex life, yet had no problem talking about it to Peter and James behind my back? For years, none of my friends trusted me and I never knew. Your cousin is more relentlessly annoying than you are! Why can't either of you stay home when you're told?! Andromeda's going to be stuck raising a child that shouldn't have been born in the first place because her daughter's another stubborn, shitheaded Black like you. Do you two have an hereditary werewolf kink or something? Why couldn't you leave me alone when I asked you to?"

Remus began to cry. He was as shocked as Sirius by the wrathful tears.

"Did you die on purpose?" Sirius asked. His voice was hollow without being cold.

"You couldn't just hug hello for now and then discuss all this later? It may have escaped your notice but my son is about to join us. Don't let your relationship problems kill him, too."

"That's a bit harsh, Lily." James grimaced with sympathy as Remus and Sirius glanced into each other's eyes before turning to Lily to apologise. His wife glared at him. "I'd forgotten how much they bickered and carried on, too," he admitted, "but, you know, special circumstances." James subtly gestured to their ghostly environment. "I remember you tearing me to shreds for not having my wand out when Voldemort dropped by. It felt like centuries before you could look at me without crying or glaring holes through my ethereal skull. Worse than the Hogwarts years," he added to Sirius.

Lily suddenly gripped James' wrist. Her eyes were rounded by sorrow and dread as Harry's voice whispered through the fog.

_I am about to die_

James held his wife's hand as they stepped through a strange rift, similar to the entry to Platform 9 3/4. Sirius paused on this side to speak to Remus. "Harry always trusted you Remus. He needs you, too. Don't punish him for my mistakes, or his father's."

"Lily...?"

"Prongs never told Lily we thought you were a traitor, neither did I. Our suspicions stayed between the two of us." Sirius turned and vanished.

Remus followed without hesitation. He had eternity to ponder past events. It felt like stepping through a waterfall, but without getting cold and wet. His hair prickled unpleasantly. An abiding sense of _wrong_ travelled through him like an electrical current. He refused to stand by Sirius or seek comfort in the touch of his hand. He wasn't sure they could touch anymore. The prospect of never hugging Sirius again was more painful than either death had been. Harry looked wretched. He may be of age, but he was also a boy reaching out for his parents. His hand passed through Lily's and their emotional agony eclipsed any Remus had ever experienced. Guilt made his soul curl inwards like a desiccated coccoon surrounding a dead larva. Teddy would grow up an orphan, unable to remember the touch of his mother's hand or her whispers of love. Harry apologised, as though it was his fault. Sirius watched Remus lie. Of course the boy wouldn't understand why his parents chose to fight and die. Harry hadn't until recently, not truly. Why didn't Nymphadora stay home?!

Harry dropped the Resurrection Stone and they were pulled back through the arch. James and Lily immediately curled their arms around each other and vowed to wait. If Harry chose to move on, then they would travel with him. If he lived, they would move on without him. He would find them when his time came.

"Would you like us to stay, and wait with you?" Remus asked Lily. She hugged him. It was the most tremendous feeling, better than being alive.

"No, you go on." Lily kissed his cheek then pounced on Sirius in similar fashion and hauled them together. "Take this one with you. Be gentle with each other, please? I couldn't bear it," she sniffed and sniffled, "if you stopped loving each other, after everything. You can't say anything to either Sirius or James that I haven't already hollered at them a thousand times."

"Millions," James interjected, "at least."

Lily laughed through her tears. "Oh no, here he comes. Everyone hide so he doesn't decide to stay."

"How do we do that?" James asked.

"Are we mighty wizards, or what?" Sirius replied haughtily.

"I might be. You and Prongs are a pair of Doxy-douches, remember?"

"That's more like it," Lily said with a mild smile. "I've missed having the Marauders about, especially you Moony."

Remus and Sirius exchanged a glance and a nod. They'd decided to wait with Lily and Prongs. Remus nervously reached for Sirius' hand and let out a breath of relief when Sirius linked their fingertips together. They both noticed James wink at Lily and felt like complete idiots for fighting earlier. Two sets of lovers watched Harry talking to Dumbledore. Three friends comforted Lily when they heard the truth about Severus.

Sirius whistled low and muttered 'Did not see that coming' as he joined the group hug. "You couldn't have saved him Lil, anymore than Moony managed to tame me."

"All four of you, intelligent to the point of stupid! Thank Merlin Harry inherited some of Petunia's ignorance or he'd be dead too."

"Um, Harry **is** dead Lil."

Lily elbowed Sirius in the stomach.

"You suddenly expect me to behave like an angel because I'm dead? Worked so well for James."

"You felt that?" Remus asked. Sirius frowned through one eyebrow while rubbing his gut. "Sorry, just, not sure about this place yet."

"Guess we better fuck before crossing completely over, then." The whisper tickled Remus' ear, causing a wildly inappropriate yet heavenly hard-on.

"You two! Behave!" Lily scolded them. "Dumbledore's leaving. Go back Harry. Live darling, and love every moment."

"What if Voldemort kills him again?"

Remus joined James and Lily in slapping Sirius.

"What? It's a serious concern!"

The four friends urged Harry to keep living and celebrated with hugs when he did just that. Lily and James decided to wait some more in case Voldemort did kill Harry again. Sirius put a cautious arm around Remus then they kissed for the first time in over a year.

"Eternity, with me?" Sirius asked softly.

"Please," Remus replied.

An enormous motorbike rose out of the fog. Sirius gestured to the pillion seat. "Hop on then."

Remus sat beside Sirius and wrapped both arms tighly around him. "Where will this take us?"

"I don't know," Sirius admitted.

"What if Nymphadora's there, waiting for me?"

"Then I'll run her over on this thing."

"Animal."

"Like only you know it, Moony. Ready?"

Remus adjusted his grip on Sirius and wiggled his bum into a more comfortable position. "Do I have a choice?"

"Not anymore."

They rode into oblivion, never looking back, relying only on each other. It was heaven.


End file.
